Musu.bi
(Still in development)
Learning to Explore
Currently I am working on something that is specially designed and developed for children: the game (still without a name but I am working on it). It will be a game that can be used at school in the classroom but also at home for unschooled children. Together with an expert in education, Ms. Elena Hirsch, student at the school of education is Salzburg, Austria, we are planning to create an innovative game that embraces the different learning methods and gives children the opportunity to experience self-directed learning. Especially for creating an educational game it takes more than one person to develop and design something with value. According to the institute of play the perfect game is developed by combining three expertise. In this case Elena will be the teacher, I will be the game designer and together we form the third party, the curriculum designer as this game should not only work in a schooled system but also in an unschooled one.
Key values: Inclusiveness/Equality, Play and enjoyment, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity Critical Thinking, Individuality, Systems Thinking, Self Directed Learning
The descriptions of the game are first drafts and no final designs yet, changes will happen through going deeper into detail.
The target group are children aged between 10 and 12 years, Year 6 to year 7 students.
Story of the game
An expedition on a foreign planet trying to find the missing pieces of the research-robot Musu.Bi to make it possible for it to explore and preserve the planet’s ecosystem.
A game to experience different learning methods, various research options and the real value of education. The game is focused on equality, self-directed and motivated learning, individual interests, collaboration and communication, creativity and diversity. It is developed to de-school the education system with special focus on the Austrian and English system.
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Goal of the game is to make Musu.Bi function again and to get expert in a topic of choice with a final research output in the end. The children will experience different ways of learning and researching and can develop their own interests and learning style. They will see that education can be done in a fun and free way as well. 21st century skills are going to be addressed and the game fosters equality and self-directed learning since the tasks are easy to achieve for all kind social environments and schooling models.
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Musubi [mùsúbí] - Japanese for “to tie”, “to bind” or “to link” and interpreted as “a power which gives birth and life force” (via www.japanesemythology.wordpress.com) The name of the game is inspired by the definition of the musubi gods from Japan, which tranlates as binding and linking, also combining.
Components of the game
- 1 board (poster) showing a map of the planet with the grey continents
- 50 task cards (35 main tasks, 15 additional tasks)
- 1 logbook
- 1 educator‘s manual including additional stickers for bonus tasks
- 1 letter of Musu.bi
- 1 Spaceboat pawn
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printing templates:
Musu.Bi robot template (for each child one)
emergency cards (for each child 5)
reflexion sheet (for each child one)
Instructions, the letter of Musu.Bi, printing material and task examples can be found here.
Szenario
The development of the game
Collaboration to create a good educational game
For the development my collaborator and I are using design thinking techniques and typical game developing tools. As the game itself will engage children to use design thinking, or systems thinking, for their education and life choices it is great to use it as a designer yourself. So one is not only preaching about things that they are not even using for their own purposes. The game design thinking process has naturally been as followed. Currently we are still in the phase of playtesting and iterating our sparks, but we will take our time until we are finally ready for the first prototype.
Process
Collaboration
Since I am talking a lot about collaboration in sustainable behavior it was important for this project to collaborate too. Elena and I are talking online through Skype and Zoom. Due to Covid-19 we both got used to work with people online through videocalls therefore it wasn't a problem for us to communicate like that. We brainstormed and inspired each other by using the whiteboard tool on Zoom (which sometimes didn't want to work properly). As both our mother tongue is German we had no difficulties to express our ideas and discuss possible dissensions.
Playtesting of the game can be found here
